Blueberry Frost (Sarella/anyone?)
Mar 31, 2012 16:18:02 GMT -5
Post by kneedles on Mar 31, 2012 16:18:02 GMT -5
Wherever Scutcher went, a rattling metal clanking preceded him as though he were a broken down, rusting tin man. The front of the battered wheelbarrow,piled high with pig feed pellets, he pushed was loose and shuddering as it bounced along pot holes in the road, stray pebbles and turned up concrete. The light frosting on the road did little to steady the barrow and the bags of feed that jumped as he pushed, causing the young man to tread a little more carefully back from town than he would have done normally. That and the little pink bundle in lots and lots of old thick blankets tucked under his arms, wriggling satisfied and held safe.
The boots he wore had once been sturdy, with thick heavy soles and toecaps but time had worn away at them and his feet had grown larger still, pressed right against the caps, poking through in places. The feeble, worn down soles like chewed up strips of meat were not noticeable as Scutcher worked with his pigs in the mud, but now as he tracked through hard tarmac he felt the frost bitten ground and every loose stone and fallen twig on the road underfoot, the soft padded soles of his feet not nearly as tough as the dry, weather worn and calloused skin on his hands.
Pausing to place a large muddy finger into his eyes, Scutcher wiped away the sleepy dust lurking in the corners of his cornea. With the first of the piglets finally budging from their mother’s womb after a labour that had kept Scutcher in the pig arc perched on a stool through breakfasts and dinners, pink sunsets and glorious dawns, he was glad to be out in the open on the hunt for the now desperately needed pig feed. As much as he loved being with his pigs, there was just something about a cool crisp breeze blowing on his face and the way that the barn swallows drew royal blue and crimson figures of eight against a pastel shaded pale sky that reminded Scutcher what it truly meant to be living.
It felt like the kind of ideal that had to be sneaked by the lower districts and dredges of society. It even felt stolen- the sun pouring in through gaps in the frails wisps of snow tinted clouds, the light wind flapping making the stained fraying material of his blue shirt look almost pretty felt like they had to be paid for. There had to be a price on a day like today, Panem would never give something like this out for free. It was late morning now, and Scutcher had barely had time to wash the blood and placenta from his forearms before he’d started the walk into town.
On his face, the leftover bruising from his father’s latest and possibly most brutal attack had lately turned to a lethargic looking jaundiced kind of yellowing grey around his nose and cheeks, a heavy ugly brown scab bisecting his nose horizontally and almost perfectly in half, other reddened and clotted cuts littering his forehead and cheeks. He didn’t look nearly half as bad as he had done when the wounds had been raw and fresh and bleeding, but there were patches now of discoloured grey and sepia spotted and mottled about his skin as though he were turning into a photograph of himself gradually, piece by piece. His smile was now noticeably missing the right incisor. He was still sore in places on his body, but in the time that had passed it seemed as though Loomis Tansy, his father, had actually hurt himself more in the process of beating Scutcher. He was eighteen, six foot five and two hundred pounds without his boots on while Loomis Tansy was a one legged old drunk after all. Scutcher had not been to the house often during the birthing of the new piglets but Loomis’ chest had begun to rattle almost as badly as the bag of grain sitting in the wheelbarrow.
The bundle of blankets under Scutcher’s arm began to mewl and squirm feebly like a wet kitten, though she was a little larger than that. A rain trench ran the length of the road, providing a grassy mound to sit comfortably on and Scutcher let the wheelbarrow rest besides it, it balanced precariously but didn’t fall. The ground was wet from the lingering frost and a few mushrooms poked through the earth (probably poisonous otherwise they would have been collected already) Scutcher knelt on the ground on his backside, knees drawn up towards his chest and held the bundle in his arms with all the delicacy he would give his own new born.
Of course, in a way that’s what she was. It was fairly unlikely that he would ever marry himself; though Scutcher always lived in hope, hope was growing thinner and thinner on the ground like a thawing winter or the first bluebells in a wood. He wasn’t a wit, and wasn’t smart enough to be funny or charming- his height might be striking but there was nothing that handsome or unique in a calm cow eyed boyish face and all of that may have been surmountable had it not been for his chronic fear and inability to communicate. So it had come to pass that all of Scutcher’s tenderness and paternal feelings were put into the pigs, especially the weaker ones that Scutcher perceived as being in need of his help.
The piglet was the last of an abnormally large litter, good news for the Tansy family but not so good for the fresh pink scrap of a pig he cradled close to his chest as her momma had fifteen babies and only fourteen teats. The other larger piglets had latched onto momma quickly, taken their place through force and as piglets became protective of their own favourite teat had not left room for this little piglet and she’d been pushed out of the huddle close to their mother, left to shiver on her own away from her siblings. She was powder pink with a snuffling, wrinkled little snout and wet dark eyes like the polished buttons on a new shirt. He shook a bottle of goat’s milk mixed in with a little formula he’d bought up in town and put the rubber nipple to her lips. At first she jerked her head away, turning her nose up at Scutcher’s offering.
“I know,” he soothed, rubbing her belly with the flat of his awkward dinner platter sized hands to keep her as warm as could be. “It aint momma, is it? But it’s almost as good. I promise.”
Scutcher knew pigs well enough not to doubt that she’d understood him totally when she finally began to latch onto the bottle, her eyes drawing tightly shut as she pulled at it, not knowing her own strength or that sometimes these things need a spot of delicacy. As he pressed his nose to the domed, bony head, Scutcher noticed that she smelt like fresh hay, and her downy bristling hair was almost as white as the frost that still gathered in a few of the fallen leaves or sat cupped inside of the butter cups. He felt her belly jumping beneath the blankets, some unravelling, others smeared with oil and grease and mud from its time languishing in a shed, as she drank, her tiny heart skipping like the darting swallows threading through hedgerow while she grunted, guttural and incredibly satisfied. Scutcher sat and got comfortable, surveying the scene with no small degree of pride.
“Gonna have to give you a name sometime soon I reckon, baby,” said Scutcher in a cooing kind of voice, though of course she made no attention, lapping up the milk as though it would be ripped away from her at any point and she didn’t know where the next meal was coming from. Scutcher could understand that; being hungry and desperate for something, pushed aside by all the others who were stronger and more aggressive for the timid little wisp of pink. Of course, with his size it wasn’t like Scutcher would ever be considered the runt of a litter, but a person could be found wanting and inferior in other ways than simply size and force.
Her sucking slowed to a languid pace and Scutcher also began to feel a thick blanket of drowsiness descend on him, warm and comforting but far too thick to pull off. Looking up the road, he wondered if he may be able to catch a small nap, leant up against bracken his eyelids growing incredibly heavy, but he worried over doing so with the piglet in her arms. At this age they needed to be kept very warm indeed, as they couldn’t do it herself and Scutcher didn’t want to fall asleep and let accidently her shake the blankets of herself and catch a chill.
She was smarter than most pigs though, Scutcher had to hand it to her- grasping onto the nipple of the bottle in almost record time, her nose wet with milk that dribbled onto Scutcher’s arms. With a satisfied sort of hum, Scutcher adjusted the way he was holding her and draped the blanket a little over her flapping fleshy ears. Hers were goofy and a little larger than they should be, fanning out like the wings of a butterfly and he would keep stock of that Scutcher always made a point of remembering the little imperfections and marking that made each pig unique and special so he would know them all by names.
Searching for inspiration, Scutcher looked to the road and the coloured fields like a patchwork quilt laid over the landscape. There were wild flowers growing in the pockets they could find roots, and he tried out Buttercup, Bindweed, Campion and Hawkseed but nothing seemed to fit. He tried the birds that chirruped and whistled to each other but she wasn’t a Kestrel or a Finch either. Nine times out of ten, a pig would come out and either Scutcher or his sister Tallow would name the litter in quick succession and with relative ease, but Scutcher always had his favourites who warranted a little further thought and care over. Scutcher ‘hmmmed’ and rested his chin on her blankets resolving to give the issue of naming the pig some more thought, though for now he didn’t see anything wrong with resting a while and enjoying the day.
The boots he wore had once been sturdy, with thick heavy soles and toecaps but time had worn away at them and his feet had grown larger still, pressed right against the caps, poking through in places. The feeble, worn down soles like chewed up strips of meat were not noticeable as Scutcher worked with his pigs in the mud, but now as he tracked through hard tarmac he felt the frost bitten ground and every loose stone and fallen twig on the road underfoot, the soft padded soles of his feet not nearly as tough as the dry, weather worn and calloused skin on his hands.
Pausing to place a large muddy finger into his eyes, Scutcher wiped away the sleepy dust lurking in the corners of his cornea. With the first of the piglets finally budging from their mother’s womb after a labour that had kept Scutcher in the pig arc perched on a stool through breakfasts and dinners, pink sunsets and glorious dawns, he was glad to be out in the open on the hunt for the now desperately needed pig feed. As much as he loved being with his pigs, there was just something about a cool crisp breeze blowing on his face and the way that the barn swallows drew royal blue and crimson figures of eight against a pastel shaded pale sky that reminded Scutcher what it truly meant to be living.
It felt like the kind of ideal that had to be sneaked by the lower districts and dredges of society. It even felt stolen- the sun pouring in through gaps in the frails wisps of snow tinted clouds, the light wind flapping making the stained fraying material of his blue shirt look almost pretty felt like they had to be paid for. There had to be a price on a day like today, Panem would never give something like this out for free. It was late morning now, and Scutcher had barely had time to wash the blood and placenta from his forearms before he’d started the walk into town.
On his face, the leftover bruising from his father’s latest and possibly most brutal attack had lately turned to a lethargic looking jaundiced kind of yellowing grey around his nose and cheeks, a heavy ugly brown scab bisecting his nose horizontally and almost perfectly in half, other reddened and clotted cuts littering his forehead and cheeks. He didn’t look nearly half as bad as he had done when the wounds had been raw and fresh and bleeding, but there were patches now of discoloured grey and sepia spotted and mottled about his skin as though he were turning into a photograph of himself gradually, piece by piece. His smile was now noticeably missing the right incisor. He was still sore in places on his body, but in the time that had passed it seemed as though Loomis Tansy, his father, had actually hurt himself more in the process of beating Scutcher. He was eighteen, six foot five and two hundred pounds without his boots on while Loomis Tansy was a one legged old drunk after all. Scutcher had not been to the house often during the birthing of the new piglets but Loomis’ chest had begun to rattle almost as badly as the bag of grain sitting in the wheelbarrow.
The bundle of blankets under Scutcher’s arm began to mewl and squirm feebly like a wet kitten, though she was a little larger than that. A rain trench ran the length of the road, providing a grassy mound to sit comfortably on and Scutcher let the wheelbarrow rest besides it, it balanced precariously but didn’t fall. The ground was wet from the lingering frost and a few mushrooms poked through the earth (probably poisonous otherwise they would have been collected already) Scutcher knelt on the ground on his backside, knees drawn up towards his chest and held the bundle in his arms with all the delicacy he would give his own new born.
Of course, in a way that’s what she was. It was fairly unlikely that he would ever marry himself; though Scutcher always lived in hope, hope was growing thinner and thinner on the ground like a thawing winter or the first bluebells in a wood. He wasn’t a wit, and wasn’t smart enough to be funny or charming- his height might be striking but there was nothing that handsome or unique in a calm cow eyed boyish face and all of that may have been surmountable had it not been for his chronic fear and inability to communicate. So it had come to pass that all of Scutcher’s tenderness and paternal feelings were put into the pigs, especially the weaker ones that Scutcher perceived as being in need of his help.
The piglet was the last of an abnormally large litter, good news for the Tansy family but not so good for the fresh pink scrap of a pig he cradled close to his chest as her momma had fifteen babies and only fourteen teats. The other larger piglets had latched onto momma quickly, taken their place through force and as piglets became protective of their own favourite teat had not left room for this little piglet and she’d been pushed out of the huddle close to their mother, left to shiver on her own away from her siblings. She was powder pink with a snuffling, wrinkled little snout and wet dark eyes like the polished buttons on a new shirt. He shook a bottle of goat’s milk mixed in with a little formula he’d bought up in town and put the rubber nipple to her lips. At first she jerked her head away, turning her nose up at Scutcher’s offering.
“I know,” he soothed, rubbing her belly with the flat of his awkward dinner platter sized hands to keep her as warm as could be. “It aint momma, is it? But it’s almost as good. I promise.”
Scutcher knew pigs well enough not to doubt that she’d understood him totally when she finally began to latch onto the bottle, her eyes drawing tightly shut as she pulled at it, not knowing her own strength or that sometimes these things need a spot of delicacy. As he pressed his nose to the domed, bony head, Scutcher noticed that she smelt like fresh hay, and her downy bristling hair was almost as white as the frost that still gathered in a few of the fallen leaves or sat cupped inside of the butter cups. He felt her belly jumping beneath the blankets, some unravelling, others smeared with oil and grease and mud from its time languishing in a shed, as she drank, her tiny heart skipping like the darting swallows threading through hedgerow while she grunted, guttural and incredibly satisfied. Scutcher sat and got comfortable, surveying the scene with no small degree of pride.
“Gonna have to give you a name sometime soon I reckon, baby,” said Scutcher in a cooing kind of voice, though of course she made no attention, lapping up the milk as though it would be ripped away from her at any point and she didn’t know where the next meal was coming from. Scutcher could understand that; being hungry and desperate for something, pushed aside by all the others who were stronger and more aggressive for the timid little wisp of pink. Of course, with his size it wasn’t like Scutcher would ever be considered the runt of a litter, but a person could be found wanting and inferior in other ways than simply size and force.
Her sucking slowed to a languid pace and Scutcher also began to feel a thick blanket of drowsiness descend on him, warm and comforting but far too thick to pull off. Looking up the road, he wondered if he may be able to catch a small nap, leant up against bracken his eyelids growing incredibly heavy, but he worried over doing so with the piglet in her arms. At this age they needed to be kept very warm indeed, as they couldn’t do it herself and Scutcher didn’t want to fall asleep and let accidently her shake the blankets of herself and catch a chill.
She was smarter than most pigs though, Scutcher had to hand it to her- grasping onto the nipple of the bottle in almost record time, her nose wet with milk that dribbled onto Scutcher’s arms. With a satisfied sort of hum, Scutcher adjusted the way he was holding her and draped the blanket a little over her flapping fleshy ears. Hers were goofy and a little larger than they should be, fanning out like the wings of a butterfly and he would keep stock of that Scutcher always made a point of remembering the little imperfections and marking that made each pig unique and special so he would know them all by names.
Searching for inspiration, Scutcher looked to the road and the coloured fields like a patchwork quilt laid over the landscape. There were wild flowers growing in the pockets they could find roots, and he tried out Buttercup, Bindweed, Campion and Hawkseed but nothing seemed to fit. He tried the birds that chirruped and whistled to each other but she wasn’t a Kestrel or a Finch either. Nine times out of ten, a pig would come out and either Scutcher or his sister Tallow would name the litter in quick succession and with relative ease, but Scutcher always had his favourites who warranted a little further thought and care over. Scutcher ‘hmmmed’ and rested his chin on her blankets resolving to give the issue of naming the pig some more thought, though for now he didn’t see anything wrong with resting a while and enjoying the day.
